Farmers have 'awesome' poppy season

Farmers have 'awesome' poppy season

COASTAL poppy growers say they have had a good season as their annual harvest period draws to a close next week.

Tasmania's lucrative poppy crop is worth $120 million at the farmgate and now underpins the state's agriculture industry.

Tasmanian growers have been fighting against the state's monopoly ending after interstate trials of the narcotic crop.

"With the harvest only about a week out from finish, it has been an awesome season for many Coastal farmers," Poppy Growers Tasmania president Glynn Williams said yesterday.

He welcomed the good result after a disastrous start to spring weather-wise.

Mr Williams said on a paddock that was to be resowed in October due to rain but that he left, he got three tonnes per hectare, which was a personal best result.

"The results crash into the argument about the need to go to Victoria [to grow poppies] to de-risk when we have pulled through such a tough season so well," Mr Williams said.

"The position of the farmers here is that they are ready, willing and able to grow poppies and we can expand our poppy production significantly."

Poppy companies Glaxo Smith Kline, which has a factory in Victoria, Tas Alkaloids and TPI Enterprises said customers wanted them to secure supply and and have trialled growing poppies in Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Tas Alkaloids has a factory at Westbury and operations manager Rick Rockliff said any move by the company to grow poppies in Victoria was to top up Tassie.

"The main reason we are looking to Victoria is to guarantee our continuity of supply," Mr Rockliff said.

He said the weather was ideal for this year's harvest. "You could not have wished for a better weather pattern and that's why the Tasmania poppy industry was established.

"Generally speaking in the North-West the [crop] yields have been good and with $10,000 per hectare there are good returns out there."

Mr Rockliff said Tas Alkaloids had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Tasmania and would always call the state home. "We're not about to move anywhere. We feel we're better to concentrate here and lift the acreage."

Mr Rockliff believed there was enough scope within existing legislation for it to be possible to grow GM poppies in Tasmania but he said it was easier to do so in Victoria.

He said the poppy industry was more or less the foundation of the Tasmanian agriculture industry now.

Mr Williams said farmers were looking for strong leadership from the state and federal governments in light of the push to grow poppies interstate.

"We say there is no need for the dangerous crop to be grown outside Tasmania for at least five years and possibly longer as Tasmania ramps up its productivity with irrigation and improved techniques for growing."